Those checks we have to write for taxes are painful, but today I am also thinking that the “pound of flesh” that we have to pay for being human and attempting to become conscious is much harder and more harsh. In order to learn any of the higher values of life we have to experience the opposite, and truth be told, we must be guilty of the opposite, leaving us with the debt of pounds of flesh to pay. In order to learn to trust and be trusted, to love and be loved, to care and be cared for we have to get them all wrong as many times as we get them right – both in how we give them and what receive or don’t receive of them, before we understand what the values are about. We only learn these things by rubbing up against each other in life, and then having the pounds of flesh to pay when we get it wrong. It’s like paying taxes. No man is an island. We operate together and learn together and figure it out together. There are taxes to pay much bigger than the financial ones for sharing this earth together. That reality part of the deal – “death and taxes.”  It all works out in the end. Send the check, pay the pound of flesh and be grateful we’re working it out together as we go.